an american in praha: Paradise Lost

Just kidding with the title. This isn't quite that long. But it is an epic novel among blog posts. My apologies.

Tuesday, I had my FIRST (Faculty of Social Sciences) CHARLES UNIVERSITY CLASSES! I’m not usually this enthusiastic about starting classes, but to be totally honest, I was getting a little stir crazy without anything on my schedule, and my apartment mates had all started their CERGE classes last week. The staggered class start date meant that I was also starting to become the receiver of such statements as “well it doesn’t MATTER when you go to bed, because you don’t have to get up at 7am for CZECH CLASS”. Legitimate and guilt inducing (both because I did not, in fact, have to get up at 7am, AND because I wasn’t formally learning any Czech yet). I should also mention that the classes at Charles aren’t particularly daunting, either, since they meet once a week for an hour and a half (with the exception of Czech, which meets for two hours twice a week).

Waking up early was a little rough, but I was still out of the house with what I thought would be sufficient time to get to my 8:20 Czech class a little early. However, it turned out that finding the correct barely-marked building on Olpetalova wasn’t the hardest part of getting to class. My classroom was on the 6^th floor, and when I reached the 5^th floor the main stair case stopped. At the opposite end of the 5^th floor, there was a tiny, enclosed spiraling staircase that went up to what I figured must be the 6^th floor. At the top of this staircase were two closed doors, neither one obviously leading into a classroom, so I went back downstairs thinking that maybe I had missed a wing of the building or something. I hadn’t. I got back up to the 6^th floor, totally flustered, and opened the door to “Graduate Student Study Room” to find my entire class a couple minutes into the lesson. There’s probably some sort of important life lesson to be learned here, but I’m not really sure what it is. Maybe: Don’t underestimate tiny spiral staircases that lead to attics with classrooms?

The Czech class was pretty fun. I have it with Renee, three German guys (one of whom has dreads and is named Sebastian. Nice, right?), A French girl, and a Spanish girl. I think it’ll be a good class.

After Czech, I headed over to the Jinonice campus (30 minutes by metro) with Renee. Our first class was cancelled by the professor, so we had a lot of free time before the next class, which we also had together. We got lunch at the cafeteria. Well, I actually bought my sandwich from a vending machine before I realized that it was just as easy to get food from the cafeteria No matter. We ate lunch in the cafeteria, and I was going to respond to some emails, but Jinonice doesn’t really get any wireless internet. Since we still had about 3 hours before “Great Powers and the Development of Czechoslovakia in Central European Context 1938-1948” we decided to explore the area around the campus. Turns out there’s an elementary school and some highway. Unless you're into the whole "sidewalks beside highways" thing, there is not really anything of interest at the Jinonice campus except for the cafeteria and classes. When we got back to campus after our excursion, we met up with this Canadian kid named Scott who we met at orientation last week. We still had about 2 hours to kill, so we headed back into the cafeteria/social zone and hung out until class.

The doughnut looked so delicious.. unfortunately it was covered in prune paste, not chocolate. Not quite as tasty.

The sights to see around Jinonice

“Great Powers…” was ok. The teacher seemed to be boring himself with his own lecture, and would occasionally look out the window (which was next to the desk at which he was sitting to read off of a computer screen). The lecture was accompanied by an outstanding supplementary PowerPoint presentation, consisting of four pictures of famous men (whose names I don’t remember). It wasn’t really as bad as I’m making it sound, just dry. The professor seems like a nice guy, anyway. As long as the reading is interesting, I’ll probably keep the class. I can sit through one boring hour-and-half lecture per week.

I wasn’t signed up for the 3:30 class afterward, but I took it anyway just for kicks, because it was called “North America since WWII.” I mean, how could I pass up a chance to hear someone from another country teach a class about America? I think it's really interesting to hear other opinions about things subjects-like the United States- that are so close to me that it's hard to form objective opinions. The professor was great, and I think I would have liked to switch into the class. However, the while the class was listed online as being only 40 minutes, it was actually an hour and a half. Therefore, it ended at 5pm, just as my next class 30 minutes away at Opletalova was beginning. Fail. We were, obviously, late to the next class. Two things I can remember from my lone class on North America:

1. “Ok next topic, American politics. You’re all too young to remember this, but who here has heard of Ross Perot?” ..what a way to introduce American politics since WWII.

2. “Dr. Putnam (he pronounced it ‘Pootnam’), as many of you know, is the author of “Bowling Alone” etc., etc. ….and I think I might write him sometime and ask him whether his name is pronounced ‘Pootnam’ or ‘Putnam.’”

Student: “It’s definitely Putnam.”

“Ok, do you really think so? I will have to write him sometime and ask.”

After “North America” we were running very late for “Economics of the Czech Republic” so we got landed with second row seats in the lecture hall. It was a great class, though. There is no doubt that I’ll enjoy it. I could write about the Czech economy here, but maybe I’ll save that for another time when I’m not still waiting for the coffee to set in? Not that the Czech economy is boring (quite the opposite), but because I cannot possibly do it justice right now.

Renee and I went and got pizza in a tucked away pizzeria after class, and it was fantastic. Then we ran by the giant bookstore in Wenceslas, where I picked up a book by David Baldacci and a novel by Cecilia Ahern, who also wrote P.S. I Love You. I will start getting real Czech literature soon, I promise. It’s just that after reading “Atonement” it is absolutely necessary that I indulge myself with some upbeat reading (that undoubtedly has also just caused whoever is reading this blog to pass serious judgment on me). It was the perfect way to end the day.

The Fanta bottle was really interestingly shaped.

Yesterday was the first real day of my internship at the Fulbright office! I was a little nervous, just because I’ve never been an intern before, and I wasn’t sure exactly what would be expected of me. However, after I got to the office and Jakub introduced me to all the other staff (the Director has red hair!!) and pointed out the COFFEE ROOM I felt much less nervous. He let me draft and send out a letter to about 40 people coming to a U.S. higher education fair in March, and I’m their contact. I haven’t written much in the way of formal correspondence, but I thought it looked all right. Usually I will intern on Mondays, not Wednesdays, so I’ll get to start communicating with all these representatives when I go back into the office Monday.

I work somewhere in that bulding.

I left the office at 12:30, and set off to find an umbrella because there was a chance of rain and it was WALKING TOUR CLASS DAY! I love WTCD. I was supposed to meet friends for lunch at an Indian restaurant behind CERGE before WTCD at 2pm, so I thoroughly searched the mall at the Flora metro stop in hopes of getting one before I headed to lunch, but, alas, no umbrellas were to be found. However, when I got off the metro at Museum, the street vendor on Wenceslas Square was selling them for five dollars. Go figure. Problem solved (it never ended up raining, anyway). The Indian food was superb and cheap, so I will be returning there frequently.

The topic for yesterday’s tour was “The Medieval Town of Prague: Prosperity and revolution.” I know it would be hard to ever persuade Richmond that I’m learning more from this class than I could learn from any classroom history class, but I think it might be the truth. Information sinks in better when you can see and be a part of the history that you’re studying. In the interest of time and space, won’t do an entire recap of the tour this week, but I’ll touch on a couple of interesting points and put in some pictures, since WTCD is so awesome.

Much of the focus this week was on the Hussite movement in the Czech Republic (Jan Hus, Wycliffe, etc.), so most of the architecture we looked at was connected in some way to that subject and general time period. We stayed primarily in Old Town. In addition, we looked at the reign of Kind Charles IV. Couple interesting things about him:

He was a talented city planner, and largely responsible for planning “New Town” in Prague. It is easy to differentiate Old Town from New Town if you look at a map because while New Town has wide lanes, green spaces (there used to be more), and a general orderly look, Old Town has small streets and is very close together without the same level of organization.
After his coronation, he partied in the garden of a convent.

Prague loves Charles, so I’m sure I’ll have more substantial Charles facts to share in the future. I’ll let the pictures do some talking for the rest of WTCD:

One of King Charles's planned green spaces in New Town

Inside the Cathedral of St. Mary of the Snow (interesting fact from Pavel: there is a sister church to this church in Italy)

Only lightpole of its kind (cubism!) and the gate to the garden of the (currently active) convent where King Charles partied.

Place where the first Pilsner was served!!!

Wenceslas Square from the spot where the dividing wall/moat between Old and New Town used to be

(Only?) preserved part of the original moat, available for your viewing pleasure in the Mustek Metro Station

A view of the marketplace in Old town that has been active for centuries (I think since the 1300s, but I could be wrong). It's primarily a tourist attraction now, though.

Sometimes tourist stuff is just too good not to appreciate.. hahaha

Part of the original building of Charles University

GIANT NUTELLA JAR!

Bench in the square!

I had never noticed this before, but if you look closely at the two towers on the church, you will notice the the tower on the left is slightly smaller (the "female") and the one on the left is bigger (the "male"). This architectural distinction is apparently common on churches, but I had never noticed it before. Also, fun fact: the female tower burned down and had to be rebuilt.

Our fearless tour guide/professor Pavel pulled out his microphone when he saw someone else with one. It ended up not working, but we were all very impressed that he came armed with a microphone in the first place.

Bethlehem Chapel, reconstructed in the 1950s by the Communist government for a reason that I cannot remember but will insert here as soon as I find it.

After the walking tour, Pavel helped point Rhee-Soo, Pranadhi, and me in the direction of the nearest metro, and asked if we wanted to go get a beer with him and Ondrej, the other tour guide. It sounded fun, but we weren’t sure if he was serious or not, so we didn’t go. I asked Jeannie later, since she’s the resident expert on all things Prague, and she said that it’s totally normal to go have a beer with your professor, so fail on us. He wasn’t just being polite. Next time, we’re totally taking him up on the offer. Who passes up a beer in Prague?! Apparently, I did yesterday. I’m still kicking myself.

Rhee-Soo, Pranadhi, and I stopped by Tesco to get pasta, then went to their apartment, which I had never been to before and is RIGHT BY THE BABY TOWER. Sweet, huh? Dinner was fantastic, and we did some trip planning. The more I think about it, the less I want to travel too far out of the county while I’m in Prague, and the more I want to travel around to all the different towns and cities within the country and to places like Bratislava, Slovakia, and Vienna. When else will I have an opportunity to thoroughly take in Central Europe like this?